Pharmaceuticals

Falsified medicines are a major threat to public health and safety.

Falsified drugs are reported all over the world and it is estimated that these medicines may constitute as little as one percent of the trade in developed countries to as much as 30 percent of the market in developing countries. 

Adopted in 2001, the EU’s Falsified Medicines Directive states that by 2019, every pharmaceutical company operating in the EU will have to meet serialisation and verification requirements, meaning that the outer packaging of any medicine will require added security measures.

Traceability is key to authenticate the origin of the products, whilst physical security is required to identify if the products have been tampered with. Security and/or RFID labels can help pharmaceutical companies meet these requirements while also providing accurate inventories.

Security and traceability

As a leader in label manufacturing, Paragon ID can produce a wide range if labels to ensure physical security and full traceability:

• Sterilisation and cryopreservation labels
• Traceability and security labels
• Product labels
• Blood bag labels
• RFID/NFC labels 

Paragon ID's security labels ensure the history of pharmaceutical items can be traced from manufacturing, all the way to the end user. The labels can be placed on the packaging of the item itself, on boxes, trays and pallets. In addition to ensuring full traceability, Paragon ID’s advanced RFID labels provide a number of safety features, to prevent tampering, including:

• Security labels: void labels, indestructible, non-transferable
• Invisible inks
• Holograms
• Special cutting
• RFID tag-tamper functionality
• Recording of the event on the chip in case of tampering
• The status of the tag tamper wire can be read in a NDEF message, or with a dedicated command

Paragon ID's RAIN RFID inlays (PID Pioneer 26x12 and PID Pioneer 25x12) inlays) have been designed for unit-of-use medications in pharmaceutical and other healthcare applications. Both products are ARC Spec S certified and suitable for tagging a broad range of items including full and empty plastic syringes and vials as well as plastic ampules. 

Authentication

Products can be authenticated to ensure product provenance via scanning the RFID tags on the item, or inside its packaging. These tags can then be linked to a smartphone app for the distribution network and consumers. This information is securely protected and accessible only to the consumer via data protection with access passwords and cryptology, therefore providing authentication and full traceability.

Full spectrum coverage

This secure offering from Paragon ID covers a broad range of pharmaceutical items, from pills to drugs in liquid forms all the way to blood bags. RFID is recognised as the right solution by the blood transfusion community, as this system guarantees blood product traceability, management and integrity at every stage of processing and storage.

Users can benefit from a full history of where their plasma has been and whether or not it has been tampered with. Meanwhile RFID’s guaranteed integrity of the cold chain means that blood bags are always stored in the correct temperature, for the duration of their life. This provides assurance to the beneficiary via product traceability from donation, all the way through processing, to delivery to the blood bank/hospital they use.

Minimising errors

As well as improving traceability Paragon ID’s RFID system means the potential for errors is drastically reduced. Implementing this solution into daily operations throughout the supply chain can significantly reduce manual handling, streamlining operations and saving costs.